To Sleep, Perchance To Dream
by Clez
Summary: When the SG1 team wake up in the infirmary, and have very little memory of what has happened to them, can they get to work on solving the mystery in time? Please R&R. Thanks :
1. Chapter 1

The last thing he had remembered was collapsing to the ground, coughing violently. The gas had been filtered into the room before any of them had noticed, or been able to avoid it. Shortly after that, he had passed out.  
  
Now he could hear faint voices, and although it hurt to open his eyes to the harsh light above his head, he forced himself to, wincing immediately.  
  
"Sir, I think he's coming around," he heard a woman say, and after the initial registration of someone's voice, he recognised it as Doctor Janet Fraiser.  
  
He raised a hand to his head, rubbing his eyes gently to try and clear them. Then he glanced to his right, the direction of the voices.  
  
He could see two figures standing, one of which was Dr. Fraiser. The other was larger in build, a reasonably tall man with a blue shirt, decorated with stars on the shoulders.  
  
General Hammond.  
  
The two walked over, and he rubbed his eyes again, coughing once.  
  
Fraiser came to his bedside, and checked a monitor, writing something on a clipboard before she set it down. She leaned over him slightly, and in a quiet voice asked, "How are you feeling?"  
  
"Confused," was his rasping reply. He cleared his throat, and then continued, a little louder, "What happened?"  
  
General Hammond was the next to speak, coming closer to the patient lying on the bed, "We sent SG-7 through when we didn't hear from you. You had been gone nineteen hours."  
  
He raised an eyebrow. "Nineteen hours?"  
  
Jonas Quinn pushed himself into a seated position, feeling his body protest to the sudden activity he was forcing onto it. He ignored it, and successfully achieved a sitting position. He could look the General in the eye properly now.  
  
Dr. Fraiser handed him a glass of water, which he took and sipped at slowly.  
  
He glanced across the infirmary then, and saw the three other members of SG-1 lying unconscious on other beds. His eyes snapped back to Dr. Fraiser.  
  
"Are they alright?"  
  
She nodded twice. "They'll be fine. You inhaled a dangerous amount of some sort of anaesthetic. Once we got you back, it was just a case of clearing your systems of it. Can you tell us what happened?"  
  
Jonas shrugged, unsure himself of the details. He took another sip of the water, and set it down, saying, "We got to the coordinates where the chancellor had told us to meet him, and there was no one there. Just a plain room. When we tried to leave, the doors had locked." He shook his head, continuing, "The Colonel tried shooting the doors, but nothing happened. After that, I just remember the gas filtering into the room, and then passing out." He gave one final shrug, running a hand through his ruffled hair.  
  
General Hammond nodded. "You were in that very same room when SG-7 found you. They had to blow the door in with C4. That very same chancellor is not pleased, to say the least. He wants us to reimburse him for the damages."  
  
Jonas cocked his head pensively. "Has he given an explanation as to what happened to us?"  
  
"No," Hammond replied. "He refuses to acknowledge the situation. He's denying all knowledge of the situation, and won't admit to having any part in the incident."  
  
Jonas sighed restlessly, wishing to get out of the bed. He was having a sudden craving for food of any kind, and above all, sleep. He did not wish to sleep though, and shrugged off the urge.  
  
Fraiser moved off then, probably to check on her other patients, without saying a word.  
  
The Kelownan watched her go, glancing momentarily at the other members of his team.  
  
What had happened?  
  
* * *  
  
Approximately thirty minutes had passed, and Jonas was stabbing at what remained of his less than appealing dinner. He had managed to force down most of it, after Dr. Fraiser had informed him he needed to get his strength back up.  
  
Teal'c had stirred not long after Jonas, and now he was undergoing some routine checks, as Jonas had shortly after waking. Blood pressure, pulse, temperature, and so on.  
  
Jonas let the fork go, hearing it clatter quietly on the plastic tray set over him on the bed, and slumped back onto the comfortable pillows behind him, his head suddenly feeling very heavy. He took a sip from a carton of juice, and then placed in on the cabinet beside his bed.  
  
"Jonas Quinn," he heard Teal'c call to him.  
  
His green eyes travelled the short distance to meet Teal'c's, and he saw curiousity there, and perhaps a little anger. The Jaffa never did like to feel overpowered.  
  
"I do not have any knowledge of the events following being locked in the room," Teal'c told him.  
  
"Me either. Hammond told me they sent SG-7 through after we'd been missing for nineteen hours."  
  
"That is a very long time indeed," Teal'c noted, looking to the nurse as she removed the device from his arm that measured his blood pressure. He bowed his head slightly, and then turned his full attention back to the Kelownan.  
  
"Yeah. A little too long really," Jonas mumbled in confusion, crossing his arms over his chest as he lay there, back on two pillows rested up against the backboard.  
  
"What is your meaning, Jonas Quinn?"  
  
Jonas looked to the Jaffa for a short time, and then said, "Well, we were scheduled to return three hours after setting out from Earth, right?"  
  
Teal'c gave a single nod.  
  
"Then why did they leave it so long before coming to get us?" Jonas asked, narrowing his eyes in serious thought.  
  
Teal'c did not have time to reply, as Colonel Jack O'Neill suddenly shot upright in his bed, nearly tumbling off it in the suddenness of his action. He looked around in a daze, and then groaned, rubbing his face roughly.  
  
At about the same time, Major Samantha Carter stirred, a lot more discreetly than her commanding officer. She sat up after a brief moment, and looked at the rest of the team, puzzled.  
  
Jonas looked over at them, and then to Dr. Fraiser as she approached. She crossed immediately to the two latest team members to regain consciousness, and began checking them over, as she had with the alien half of the team.  
  
Teal'c gazed at Jonas for a while, and then called to the Colonel, "Are you alright, O'Neill?"  
  
The Colonel groaned loudly, and then replied agitatedly, "Yeah, just peachy."  
  
Jonas sighed discreetly, and felt his eyes yearn to close. He rubbed them, failing to awaken himself fully. He yawned, and slouched further in the covers, the warmth comforting.  
  
After a few more moments, he had fallen into a peaceful sleep.  
  
* * *  
  
Sam let a nurse measure her pulse, and then smiled gratefully as she passed on to O'Neill, who looked less than comfortable with their latest situation. Something had happened to them on that planet, and none of them could remember what that particular something was exactly.  
  
She cast a glance in Teal'c's direction, who was now sitting on the edge of the bed, eager to leave.  
  
It was then that she noticed that Jonas was fast asleep on his bed, breathing slowly and rhythmically. She raised an eyebrow, and the shrugged loosely, turning to the Colonel.  
  
Before she could say anything, Jonas shot up in the bed, and then leapt out of it, in a panic. His eyes were wide, and he looked around in fright. His breaths came raggedly and swift, and he nearly collapsed.  
  
Teal'c was on his feet, and had caught the young alien before he had fallen completely to the floor. Jonas sat on the bed again, hugging his head for a moment, and letting out a deep breath.  
  
"What is wrong, Jonas Quinn?" Teal'c inquired, even as Sam and O'Neill crossed the room to him. Fraiser was by his side within moments.  
  
Jonas swallowed, and looked at them each in turn. He shook his head, and calmly said, "I... I have no idea. I had a nightmare... it seemed so real."  
  
Fraiser checked him over quickly, and satisfied that he was alright, moved off silently.  
  
"Are you sure you're okay? You scared the hell outta me," Sam stated, looking him in the eye.  
  
He nodded wordlessly.  
  
"What was the subject of your nightmare?" Teal'c inquired, linking his hands loosely behind his back, looking down at Jonas.  
  
Jonas cocked his head pensively.  
  
"I'm not entirely sure. One minute we were coming through the Stargate, and the next, the room was filled with..." he looked at them, slightly embarrassed, before continuing, "with spiders."  
  
"Spiders?" O'Neill repeated, hands akimbo.  
  
Jonas nodded. "Yeah, spiders. I can't stand spiders. The room was filled with them... and it frightened me."  
  
Sam patted him on the back gently, smiling. "Well, no spiders here, Jonas."  
  
He smiled thankfully at her comfort, and then fell silent.  
  
Sam moved back off to her own bed, just itching to be released. She wanted to get out of here, and into a nice warm shower. 


	2. Chapter 2

Samantha Carter had taken it upon herself to sit in the control room, and work on the security mechanisms, such as palm identification, iris control and the like. Lately, security had been a little slack, and she was determined not to let that get in the way of Stargate operations.  
  
The number of times something had 'slipped' through their defences was nauseating, and she couldn't stand things not being up to date.  
  
She looked down through the bulletproof glass into the embarkation room where Jonas and a number of technicians were working on a UAV. It was all geared up, and ready to fly. They just needed to dial the gate.  
  
She donned a headset, and spoke into the microphone, "Are you guys all set down there?"  
  
Jonas gave her a thumbs up, and stepped away from the UAV, as did the technicians, one of which was Sergeant Siler.  
  
Sam brought the UAV to life, and watched as the operator next to her dialled the Stargate.  
  
After a minute or so, the gate exploded into life, blue light flaring into the room. The ripples set back on the surface of the event horizon, and the UAV took flight. It glided through the event horizon, and Sam brought up visual contact.  
  
A green landscape was what greeted her on the other side. Large wildlife moved around, and to her surprise, heads poked out of the treetops.  
  
There was a vast expanse of water to the north, where some animals were wading.  
  
Sam smiled.  
  
Her content was cut short however as a masculine cry of surprise assaulted her ears. She shot out of her chair, and looked into the embarkation room, even as gasps and screams filled the control room she stood in.  
  
Hundreds of scurrying life forms poured through the gate, crawling up every surface. Black in colour, and hairy in texture, they clambered up anything they could find.  
  
Jonas was one of the panicking occupants of the room, but his alarm was pushed down at the sudden dilemma that faced them.  
  
"Close the iris!" he shouted loudly, stamping on a spider as it ran at him madly, its eight legs crossing over one another swiftly.  
  
Sam snapped the order to the officer seated beside her, who soon looked up at her, and replied, "I can't. There's a technical fault."  
  
"Jonas, get out of there!" Sam said calmly through her headset.  
  
Jonas nodded, kicking another arachnid away from him.  
  
He ran to the door, and swiped his card through it, standing there and staring at it afterwards. He repeated the action again and again, before slapping a palm on the door.  
  
"It won't open!" he yelled to Sam, running to a technician's aid, who was under attack.  
  
He, despite his fear of the creatures, began pulling them off the technician, and throwing them aside.  
  
The arachnids started climbing up Jonas' legs, and he started batting them off immediately, slight succumbing to the panic he obviously felt.  
  
"Can you shut off the Stargate?" Sam demanded of the officer next to her, even as spiders started scurrying up the glass in front of her. She grimaced.  
  
After a few quick moments of typing, the officer nodded, and entered a sequence of keys, which then proceeded to successfully shut down the Stargate, even slicing one or two of the creatures in half as they entered the room.  
  
Sam slammed her hand down on the alarm button beside her, silently hoping that help hurried on its way.  
  
Jonas and the others tried desperately to get out of the room, even taking to bashing the door with fire hydrants. Nothing worked, and Sam bit her bottom lip gently.  
  
Siler was overcome suddenly with spiders, and he cried out to Jonas to help him. The Kelownan quickly came to his aid, batting them off with his hands. He stamped violently on the ones that got underfoot.  
  
O'Neill, Teal'c and Hammond burst into the room, marching straight over to Sam.  
  
"What in the hell..." Hammond was cut short at the scene set out before him. Black, hairy monstrosities were crawling everywhere, including the people in the room.  
  
She heard Jonas' voice as he called for help.  
  
"They're working on the doors. Some sort of system failure," O'Neill offered with a shrug, grabbing the microphone on the desk, and saying, "Hold on. We're getting you out of there."  
  
* * *  
  
A short amount of time had passed, and roughly two thousand dead spiders littered the floor. They crunched underfoot as he walked over them, and he grimaced in disgust at the sight of all of them.  
  
There was no explanation for how the arachnids had been able to pass through an outgoing wormhole as of yet, but Sam was working on it.  
  
Jonas, Siler and the others were being checked over in the infirmary. Jonas had suffered a rather nasty bite to his left arm, which had been bleeding when O'Neill had come to the infirmary. Fraiser had been working on cleaning the wound and bandaging it when he left.  
  
It was odd. Jonas' fear of spiders had attacked him both in his dreams and in real life. Where the hell had the beasts come from anyway?  
  
The canisters of pesticide had rid them of the problem anyway, and now they were all dead on the floor.  
  
One leg twitched from beside him, and without mercy, he brought his foot crashing down on the limb, hearing the loud crunch as he did so.  
  
* * *  
  
Sam sat in Jonas' office with the alien. He sat in deep thought, a little shaken by his recent experience. A bandage covered his left forearm where the arachnid had bitten him badly. Fraiser had confirmed that the spider had not been poisonous, and it had just managed to break the skin.  
  
She sighed, and flicked through a book that lay on his desk.  
  
Jonas ran a hand through his spiky hair then, and looked at Sam.  
  
"It's too much of a coincidence," he said confidently.  
  
"What is?" she asked, closing the cover of the book.  
  
Jonas raised his eyebrows for as moment. "The spiders. I have a nightmare about the embarkation room being filled with them, and then it does get filled with them. A little strange, don't you think?"  
  
Sam thought carefully over what to say for a minute, before replying, "There's no way that the two could be related, Jonas. I'm afraid I have to agree with Hammond... it's just a frightening coincidence."  
  
Jonas slumped back in his chair. He didn't believe her, and she knew that from the look on his young face. He had another theory, but she didn't know what that particular theory was.  
  
And she wasn't sure whether or not to ask.  
  
* * *  
  
Jonas looked down at the bandage on his arm, and shuddered. His latest experience had him shaken, and he kept subconsciously checking here and there for legs scurrying. He thought he heard them on more than one occasion, but simply closed his eyes, and then they were gone.  
  
He wanted to go back to PP9-843, the planet where they had lost consciousness. The planet where the chancellor had told them to meet him, only to be trapped in a room and knocked out.  
  
None of it made sense.  
  
The planet in itself had been odd. They were advanced, but not in the way of travel. They used horses, four legged mammals that were common on both that planet, and here on Earth. But in order to have use of the animals, you had to trade something with the keepers. Anything from food to currency was accepted. SG-1 had been forced to part with a week's rations in order to have use of the animals.  
  
O'Neill had protested to the use of the mammals, but the keepers had insisted that the townspeople did not trust anyone who approached on foot. They were seen as thieves, here to take something of value. Word was, if they could not afford a horse, they were up to no good.  
  
And so the keepers had horses set up to use by the Stargate, ready to ride as soon as someone passed through the Gate.  
  
Jonas had never ridden a horse before, but Sam had shown him how, and he had quickly realised it was nowhere near as hard as it looked.  
  
Sighing, he leaned back in his chair, and flipped open Doctor Jackson's notebook, skimming through to see if he could find anything of relevance that would give Jonas an answer of any kind.  
  
He had a long search ahead of him. 


	3. Chapter 3

Sam shot upright in her bed instantly, swallowing dryly, and reaching for her bottle of water. She found it quickly, and upon flicking on her lamp, removed the cap, and took a large gulp to moisten her throat.  
  
She looked around in a worried daze. It had all seemed so real... but none of it could be. It was too unbelievable.  
  
She was dead. O'Neill had seen to that. There was no way anyone, not even a Goa'uld, could survive liquid nitrogen.  
  
After another moment of sitting in her bed, she threw off the covers, and stood from the mattress, donning her overshirt and boots quickly. She needed to do some work, or at least get some coffee... to help clear her head.  
  
Walking to the door, and turning off her bedside lamp, she left her room, setting off for the mess hall.  
  
Sam strode through the quiet corridors for what had to be five minutes maximum before entering the large mess hall. Officers and technicians were dotted about here and there, enjoying a late night snack or mug of warm coffee.  
  
Her eyes travelled over to a figure seated alone, a bandage on his left arm. He quietly ate a portion of jello, staring at the dessert as he chewed.  
  
Sam moved to the coffee machine, and poured herself a mug-full. With that, mug in hand, she crossed to Jonas, who seemingly hadn't noticed her approaching.  
  
"Hey, Jonas," she greeted him quietly.  
  
He looked up at her with his dark green eyes, and gave her a wan smile, pensive written all over his face.  
  
"Hi. It's kinda late. Didn't you say you were gonna call it a night?" he pondered, cocking his head to one side ever so slightly in a curious gesture of inquiry.  
  
She seated herself opposite him, and nodded in acknowledgement of his question. "Yeah."  
  
"But..." he knew there was something she wanted to add. He could see it in her expression.  
  
She looked at him quizzically, and almost laughed at the ridiculousness of it. "I had a nightmare," she confessed.  
  
This instantly had Jonas intrigued, and he set the jello aside, despite its appeal to the Kelownan. He looked at her, his eyes searching hers for answers. She could tell he was dying to know. Jonas was like a magnet for new information. If there was something new to learn, he was there, ready and waiting, eager to soak up all he could.  
  
Reluctantly, she began to digress the details of her nightmare to the alien.  
  
"It was weird. I was just minding my own business," she looked down at her mug, "drinking my coffee..." her gaze floated to him, "and you were there... eating jello." She stared at the dessert.  
  
Jonas sat back, looking at her with narrowed eyes. "Okay," he started in a mumbling tone before increasing in volume the more confident he became with his comment, "this is too much of a coincidence, don't you think?"  
  
Sam nodded slowly, taking it all in as it came to her. Jonas had had a point about his encounter with the room filled with spiders, mere hours after dreaming about such an incident.  
  
There had to be something going on here.  
  
"And what happened next?" Jonas asked of her, leaning forward on the table to be nearer to her, so that his voice didn't carry across the entire mess hall to the other occupants. He didn't want them to hear the conversation apparently.  
  
Looking around in concern, she replied slowly and surely, "Hathor appeared... out of nowhere. She came into the room, and started letting off energy blasts."  
  
"Was anyone hurt?" Jonas demanded politely, but desperately, starting to stand from the table. This was a matter of concern to him, whether or not the coincidences were something to truly worry about or not.  
  
Before Sam could reply, the door burst inwards, flying off its hinges, causing Jonas to start violently.  
  
A scream filled the air, and Sam turned in her chair, everything seeming to slow as her eyes met the glowing golden gaze of a red-haired woman, clad in robes, a metal device swirled around her hand, a pulsating orb in the centre of her palm. She smiled wickedly at Sam, raising her hand.  
  
"Jonas!" Sam cried, "Get down!"  
  
The pulse shot across the room, striking Jonas before he could hit the deck, sending him flying back hard into the wall. He fell to the floor unconscious.  
  
Sam ran to him, covering him with her own body as Hathor entered the room, tossing an airman aside like he was nothing more than a pesky insect.  
  
Jonas stirred slightly, but did not awaken.  
  
Good, at least he was alive.  
  
"You're dead," Sam growled at the Goa'uld, even as the eyes glowed gold once again.  
  
Somebody had struck the alarm, and a red light flashed in the room, creating an eerie pulsating atmosphere that made Sam's heart race with fear.  
  
She felt Jonas' pulse, keeping her eyes fixed firmly on Hathor's actions... if this truly was Hathor.  
  
It couldn't be... this had been just how her dream... no, nightmare, had turned out. Except, Jonas had been killed instantly. But the Kelownan was still alive. Sam was grateful for that inconsistency.  
  
The deep voice of Hathor filled the air, and she seemed to purr as she talked, "How can I be dead if I stand before you now? You will pay for what you have done to me... and I will start with him." She looked down with a cold gaze at the prone form of Jonas.  
  
Sam stood, blocking the female Goa'uld from her friend, who laid breathing shallowly on the floor behind her.  
  
"Get away from him. He hasn't done anything to you. If you want revenge, start with me... leave him out of this." She waved a hand in his general direction.  
  
Hathor laughed a deep, throaty laugh, and raised a hand.  
  
Sam closed her eyes, waiting for the searing pain to begin, just as she heard the crashing of booted feet entering the room.  
  
She opened her eyes again, and looked around instantly in every direction.  
  
Hathor was gone.  
  
Jack and Teal'c, along with Hammond and Fraiser ran into the room after the heavily armed officers. They lowered their weapons at Sam's word. She crouched down to Jonas again, who still lay unconscious.  
  
She laid a hand on his back gently, looking up at the others.  
  
They came over to her swiftly, Fraiser kneeling down, even in her skirt. Right now, she did not care for such trivial things... she had a patient.  
  
"Is he alive?" O'Neill asked openly when everyone else remained silent.  
  
"Yes, but I'll need to get him down to the infirmary. What on earth happened here?" Fraiser said, looking Sam in the eye, even as Teal'c moved off to retrieve aid.  
  
Sam shook her head. "I'm not entirely sure." She hesitated, looking her superiors in the eye. Would they think she was crazy? "But Hathor was here, sir."  
  
O'Neill was immediately on the alert. "No... no, no, I killed her. She's dead."  
  
"Well she was here, sir," another hesitation, "just like in my nightmare."  
  
* * *  
  
Awaking with a groan of pain, he opened his eyes to be greeted with Sam's concerned face, sitting by his bedside.  
  
Jonas looked around, on the alert. He, like Sam, had seen the Goa'uld enter the room, and had most definitely felt the blast from the hand device.  
  
"Where is she?" he moaned, rubbing the back of his neck, and sitting up. Three visits to the infirmary within fourty-eight hours... not much of an achievement.  
  
Sam sighed audibly. "She just vanished. I closed my eyes for a moment, and when the cavalry arrived... she was gone."  
  
She didn't seem to go for her own explanation much, and Jonas wasn't surprised. People -least of all Goa'uld- didn't just vanish into thin air.  
  
"That's not possible. I mean, she was real, right?"  
  
"I'm not entirely sure. Maybe we just imagined it."  
  
Jonas tilted his head considerably. "I know I didn't imagine being thrown across the room by her hand device. That was real."  
  
Sam groaned in confusion, letting her head fall to the soft mattress for a moment, before she mumbled, "I have no idea what's going on here."  
  
Jonas pondered this for a moment, before inhaling slowly, and offering, "Maybe it was holotechnology."  
  
Sam looked up then, her gaze meeting his, the two scientists sharing a thought for a brief moment. "Holograms?" She bit her lip gently. "But that still doesn't offer any explanation as to how you were thrown across the room. A real blast would have had to come from somewhere."  
  
"Yeah," Jonas agreed, shifting to make himself less uncomfortable. He settled for lying on his side, propped up on one elbow, "but if it is holograms, and that blast was real, then where did it all come from, and who's controlling it? They would have had to come up with some pretty impressive technology to allow for a projection to release blasts like that." He paused for a moment, narrowing his eyes. "Aren't Goa'uld hand devices supposed to be a lot more... fatal?"  
  
Sam narrowed a single eye in response, and replied, "Not always. It all depends on the intent of the bearer, but if it had been Hathor, then she really would have intended to kill you, not just knock you out."  
  
Jonas rolled over, placing his hands over his eyes, and rubbing them irritably. "There are too many questions here, and not enough answers to go round."  
  
He looked back over at Sam as she said, "I think we need to go back to that planet, and find out what happened to us before all of this started. It might give us something to work with."  
  
Jonas nodded. "Good idea. That could work."  
  
After receiving approval from Dr. Fraiser to leave the infirmary, Sam and Jonas headed for General Hammond's office. 


	4. Chapter 4

Walking through the event horizon, and emerging on the other side was no new sensation for either of the travellers. It was all -literally- in a day's work for the pair, and they strode down the ramp on the other side casually.  
  
Jonas carried a box in his hands, looking down at it every now and then, thinking about what was inside. It was food, as it had been the last time. He wasn't entirely sure of the contents, and he wondered whether or not the keepers would like their dinner for the evening.  
  
Sam watched as the Gate shut down, and then sighed, smiling briefly at Jonas, who moved off to the keepers, and handed them the box.  
  
A tall man nodded to Jonas, who then walked back over to Sam, who began mounting a light horse. He climbed onto the horse beside it, one that was darker in colour, and taller.  
  
They turned, and set off for the main city, where they were to begin their investigation.  
  
As they rode, Jonas -hands gripped firmly on the reins, still new at the activity- turned his head to his companion, and said, "So what's the plan?"  
  
Sam was a much more confident rider, and she petted the top of the mammal's head as she replied, casting a momentary glance in Jonas' direction, "Well, I'm hoping the chancellor will allow us access to the chamber we were trapped in."  
  
"You really want to go back in there after what happened?" Jonas queried, wavering in the saddle for a moment before quickly regaining his balance. His mount snorted contently, and shook its head, mane flicking about in all directions. He looked at it quizzically.  
  
Sam shrugged. "I don't see what option we have." She looked Jonas in the eye, and added, "If we don't go in there, we might miss something vital."  
  
"Good point," Jonas muttered, just loud enough for her to hear.  
  
For a while, their journey was silent, and the two simply concentrated on navigating the horses to the city, which was not too far off now.  
  
But eventually, Jonas could stand the quiet no longer, and asked, "Do you have any theories?"  
  
Sam pondered this for a while silently, before titling her head gracefully, and commenting, "If someone is behind this, then they have some seriously evolved technology. There's no way this is all just a coincidence, especially after our experiences."  
  
Jonas nodded, listening intently.  
  
"But, if someone is controlling our experiences, then they would have to be around, right? Or at least be able to see us from somewhere, such as video surveillance."  
  
Again, Jonas nodded, watching the road for a while as he listened to her voice.  
  
"So, in saying that, we should probably suspect someone with invisibility technology."  
  
Jonas' head turned immediately. "You mean a Goa'uld?"  
  
Sam shrugged once more. "I haven't heard of anything else with a device like the one that Niirti possessed."  
  
"What about the..." Jonas thought carefully for a moment before choosing his word, "Reetou?"  
  
Sam shook her head. "The Reetou weren't great users of technology, besides their arm-weapons. I never saw or heard of them using anything this advanced."  
  
"So you think Niirti is involved?" Jonas inquired, noticing they were entering the outmost boundaries of the city. Two mounted guards watched them intensely as they passed. Luckily, they recognised the travellers, and let them pass without trouble.  
  
Giving another shrug, more exaggerated, Sam replied, "I'm not so sure. This doesn't seem to be her style. Plus, we took her technology away from her when we had the incident with Cassandra."  
  
Jonas didn't seem convinced. "But surely she had the means to create more, if not steal or buy it from somewhere."  
  
Giving another confused sigh, Sam continued, "I don't think it's Niirti. She's just come right out with her plan, and wouldn't bother with all the fancy light show."  
  
Jonas smiled. Sam's analogy had had a certain hint of 'O'Neill' to it, and the thought that the two were becoming more and more alike actually seemed a little comical to Jonas... if not frightening. He shook his head discreetly.  
  
"Well, maybe when we take a look in the chamber we'll get some more answers," Jonas concluded.  
  
Sam nodded, patting the animal again.  
  
The rest of their journey was quiet, as they rode into the main civilisation area, and right up the city hall.  
  
* * *  
  
Chancellor Veran shook his head sternly, and glared the two members of SG-1 in the eye in turn.  
  
"Absolutely not. I cannot permit you to access the chamber again," he insisted, shaking his old head from side to side, grumbling under his breath.  
  
The man, young and intelligent was the first to press on the urgency of their business, as he said, "Chancellor, with all due respect, you don't understand the situation. We have to find out what happened in that chamber after the last time."  
  
"The last time you were in there, your people caused unimaginably damage to the chamber. We will not permit you access until you provide us with satisfactory compensation for your carelessness."  
  
The man spoke again, this time less compassionately. Apparently, he was getting quite frustrated, and wasn't hiding it or controlling it anywhere near as well as the woman he stood with. "Listen, the last time we were in there, something happened, mainly us getting locked in there without an explanation, and gassed. When you provide us with a satisfactory explanation for that, Chancellor, then we'll give you some compensation."  
  
The tone of his voice was growing to be quite hostile, and the woman reached out and touched his arm gently as he edged forward slightly.  
  
"Jonas," she muttered in warning. She spoke to the Chancellor herself much, much more gentle and understanding, "We have some research to conduct within your chamber. Whilst we're inside, we'll take a look at the damage we caused, and see if there's anything we can do about it. We can take back an estimate of the costs to our Government, and they can agree on an amount to provide you with for reconstruction... or, we'll help you with it ourselves."  
  
Chancellor Veran considered her words for a while, staring out of the vast window at the skyline of beautiful buildings set out before him. Statues of stone towered over the citizens as they moved about their daily business, oblivious to the scene playing out above them, some twenty floors up.  
  
"Please," he heard the man say, his words more serene, with a pleading hint to them.  
  
"Very well," he grumbled. "But you will be accompanied by two of my High Guard. Any actions that are deemed suspicious will result in your arrest, understood?"  
  
"We understand," the woman told him, with a slight inclination of her head.  
  
Chancellor Veran huffed in reply to her vow, and with that, he sent them out of the room, with two of his most trusted guards in tow.  
  
* * *  
  
Colonel Jack O'Neill crossed his arms impatiently over his chest as he sat in the briefing room listening -or trying to listen- to General Hammond's words. Despite his efforts, the words simply flowed in one ear, and right out the other, without registering in the middle.  
  
I hate it when Carter does this to me, he rambled subconsciously, regarding the Major's decision to journey off world without her superior officer. She should have consulted me, or at least taken me along. What good is Jonas going to be if they get into trouble?  
  
He quickly, and sternly told himself he wasn't being fair on the alien man. True, he had had no real military training, and dismissed his latest inner comment.  
  
Jonas was a very capable, levelheaded member of the team, and Jack knew he shouldn't be so quick to write him off in concern to combat. He was certain that, with a little experience, Jonas would be just as competent in the field as he was on the drawing board.  
  
He was a great thinker, much more capable than O'Neill, hands down. But in combat, O'Neill knew he would be able to beat Jonas himself without so much as breaking a sweat.  
  
But as he thought about it, he realised they hadn't really seen much of Jonas' fighting at all, and just what he could achieve.  
  
With that, Jack set to thinking just what they would come to see from their newest team member in the near future.  
  
* * *  
  
Jonas cast a tentative glance over his shoulder at the stoic High Guard behind him, standing in the demolished doorway of the chamber. With a sigh, he turned back to his investigation, seeing Sam move out of the edge of his vision.  
  
"Hey, Jonas, come take a look at this," she called to him quietly.  
  
Jonas took one last glance at the floor where he had been crouched, and moved over to Sam, curious as to what she had discovered.  
  
She pointed at a ventilation point set about five feet up into the wall.  
  
"Have you seen many vents like this in the city?" Sam asked him.  
  
"Come to think of it, not really. This one's different," he looked round, "in fact, all the ones in this room are subtlely different from the others dotted around the city."  
  
"How do you mean?" she inquired, brushing her finger along its surface as Jonas replied.  
  
"Well, the main alloy on this world is steel, right?" Jonas began, seeing Sam nod. "So why would these vents have obvious traces of another alloy in them. One that I've no doubt we'll discover to be-"  
  
"Naquadah," Sam guessed, seeing the confirming nod of her friend and teammate.  
  
"You got it," Jonas concluded.  
  
His extensive knowledge of such matters, without a doubt, certainly came in handy in scenarios like this.  
  
She smiled wanly at him, and discreetly began taking a scraping of the metal from the surface of the vent, pocketing it instantly as Jonas kept watch.  
  
The guards never even noticed. 


	5. Chapter 5

Jack had been napping peacefully, until a rather shocking dream had forced its way into his mind, subduing all pleasant unconscious mental activity instantly, replacing it with something far more disturbing... especially since the two people involved were still off world.  
  
It had taken place on their return... or rather, during their return. He was concerned, considering Sam and Jonas' experiences, which were similar to his own.  
  
He strode to the control room, glancing at his watch as he walked. They were due to return to Earth in ten minutes.  
  
Jack wanted to be in the Gate-room when they got back, to check they were okay. His nightmare -of sorts- had had him a little thrown. The origin of it was unknown, and he was hoping that the two off world members of SG-1 would be able to help in that area.  
  
In no time at all, he was opening the door to the embarkation room, pocketing his access card after using it. He nodded up at General Hammond and the officer operating the Gate. They were expecting the return as well as Jack.  
  
It was at that moment that the ring on the Stargate began to turn, making its usual grinding noise as it moved, the chevrons lighting up systematically as they normally did.  
  
Good, so far so good.  
  
Teal'c made his presence known by stepping up beside O'Neill, and bowing his head partially to the Colonel. Jack smiled wanly. He wouldn't be happy until Jonas and Carter walked through that Gate in one piece, perfectly fine.  
  
The Gate exploded into life, bright blue light reflecting off every surface. The metal iris leapt into action, spinning into position.  
  
"We're receiving an SG-1 iris code, General," Jack heard the officer say.  
  
"Open the iris," General Hammond ordered politely, and Jack heard the whirring of the metal device as it swirled out of place, allowing the team access.  
  
Jack was about to speak to his Jaffa friend when a high-pitched whine caused him to whirl immediately, eyes wide in horrific recognition.  
  
Crackles of electrical energy weaved their way around the Stargate's exterior, causing the Colonel to wince, and look up at Hammond in a slight panic.  
  
Teal'c moved towards the Gate, ready to give aid in anyway he could. Jack gripped his arm slightly, gently, but defiantly telling him to stay back.  
  
Without warning, a figure hurtled through the event horizon, about six feet above the ground, followed closely after by another. They crashed to the ramp, landing awkwardly, before rolling to a stop.  
  
Jack immediately ran to their assistance.  
  
"Medical teams to the Gate-room!" he heard Hammond thunder into the microphone.  
  
Help was on the way.  
  
The first figure tried to push their way off the ramp, wincing in agony, and using only one arm for aid. The other was held slightly up, and it shook rather unnervingly.  
  
"Jonas!" Jack called, jogging up the ramp, skidding to a halt by the young man's side, kneeling instantly, lowering his head to try and look him in the eye. "Jonas, are you alright?"  
  
Jack laid a hand on Jonas's right shoulder, and the alien gave an abrupt cry, shaking his head. His eyes remained closed, and he clenched his teeth.  
  
Jack's eyes travelled to the second figure, who lay motionless on the ramp a few feet away from Jonas, who remained in his table-like position, one arm up, head lowered, breathing slowly, trying to ease the pain that was obviously troubling him.  
  
"Sam!" Jack bounded the short distance, and he felt for her pulse, which he located without a problem. Good... at least she wasn't... he couldn't bring himself to finish that subconscious sentence.  
  
Teal'c tried to help Jonas to his feet, but the Kelownan protested, and denied the Jaffa to give him assistance. Teal'c acknowledged, and merely stood aside as the first medical team rushed in, and straight up the ramp to Jonas.  
  
Dr. Fraiser was one of the team, and she stopped by the man's side.  
  
"Jonas, you really have to be more careful," she teased lightly, touching a hand to his arm gently.  
  
Jonas winced, but stifled a cry.  
  
Jack reluctantly moved aside from the unconscious Carter as the second medical team brought a stretcher to her side, and proceeded to load her onto it carefully, handling her gently, so as not to cause her further harm.  
  
Siler stood to one side of the ramp, and Jack saw an opportunity to demand answers.  
  
"What the hell was that all about?" he barked authoratively.  
  
Siler shook his head hopelessly. "I'm not certain, sir, but I think we had a system overload. The incoming wormhole was supercharged..." he trailed off with a shrug.  
  
"Get on it," Jack grumbled, walking over to Jonas and Fraiser as the two stood, the former cradling his arm.  
  
"How bad is it?" Jack inquired with concern, looking the pained man in the eye, as Carter was carried past.  
  
"I think he's dislocated his shoulder, Colonel. It'll be fine when we get it back into place," Fraiser reported, giving Jonas a reassuring look as he eyed her unsurely.  
  
"Don't worry," she told him calmly, leading him out of the room, Jack in tow, "it's not as bad as it sounds."  
  
Jonas turned his head to look at Jack, who merely shrugged.  
  
* * *  
  
After overcoming the initial searing agony that had followed his shoulder being pulled back into joint by the Doctor and a couple of her assistants, Jonas had laid pretty stationary for a while, getting his composure together again. The pain had been intense, but it was passing now, and his arm was in a sling, restricting his use for a while.  
  
Fraiser had insisted to him that he needed it, but not for long, it was just a precaution, as she called it.  
  
Jonas didn't know whether to believe her or not. He had never dislocated his shoulder before... and he never wished to again.  
  
Jack was sitting near to him, watching Carter intently as a nurse checked on her.  
  
The nurse looked up as she felt the eyes on her, and told O'Neill, "She has mild concussion. She'll be perfectly fine, sir."  
  
With a single nod, the Colonel turned back to Jonas, saying, "So, what happened on your end?"  
  
Jonas went to shrug, but resisted the urge, and settled for shaking his head from side to side. "We dialled the Gate, and Sam sent through the iris code. We headed through the Gate, and were just thrown out on this end. I don't know what happened."  
  
"So nothing hit the Gate on the other side?" Jack inquired curiously, approaching the puzzle from as many angles as he could think of.  
  
"No, not that I know of," Jonas told him, with another shake of the head, as he looked down at the sling which held his right arm. He felt a little useless right now, but as soon as he was able to take it off, he would. He wanted to get back to work as soon as possible. This problem needed his undivided attention.  
  
O'Neill sat silently in thought, before he came out with, "So, what did you find anyway?"  
  
Jonas embraced the welcome topic of something other than their recent -and rather unpleasant- journey back home, and replied quickly, "We found traces of naquadah in the metal alloy that the vent covers are made of in the chamber we were sealed in."  
  
"Meaning?"  
  
Jonas smiled. "These people don't have access to naquadah. Their primary metal alloy is steel. Which means someone else created the vents leading into that room. Probably the same person that sabotaged the Gate."  
  
"Sabotage?" Jack repeated quizzically, cocking his head in a confused manner.  
  
Jonas took a moment to consider what he was about to say, before actually saying it aloud, "If there wasn't a problem on the side we entered from, then something must have been done to the Gate on this end." Then he added once again, "Sabotage."  
  
"Yeah, but..." O'Neill faltered, then, eyes narrowed, said, "by who?"  
  
Jonas shook his head slowly, deep in thought. "A Goa'uld?"  
  
Jack's back straightened immediately at the mention of the Goa'uld, and his demeanour became more professional. He was on the alert.  
  
"We expect it's a new Goa'uld we haven't heard of who has the same invisibility technology that Niirti had, but their actions are much more subtle than hers were. They're trying to confuse us," he explained, his voice quiet in the almost silent room.  
  
Jonas looked over at Sam as he listened to the Colonel's words, "I'll say. All these nightmares..."  
  
"What?" Jonas' head snapped back to face O'Neill. "You had a nightmare too?"  
  
O'Neill looked a little taken aback at the abruptness of Jonas' tone, but he nodded. "Yeah. And then you two got thrown through the Gate... just like I dreamt."  
  
Jonas swung his legs cautiously out of the bed, careful not to kick the Colonel square in the face. "That makes three of us. I've had a dream, as has Sam, and now you have too."  
  
"And we were all in the room," Jack concluded, to which Jonas abruptly nodded his confirmation.  
  
Jack was starting to piece it all together, albeit slower than Jonas had.  
  
"So, it's just Teal'c who hasn't had his nightmare yet," O'Neill offered, standing, and watching awkwardly as Jonas hopped off the bed's end, landing firmly on booted feet.  
  
They cast a joint glance at the unconscious Samantha Carter, before Jonas said, "Let's hope he doesn't need sleep for a while."  
  
The two headed for the exit together, after one last look towards their friend. 


	6. Chapter 6

The door to Teal'c's room was closed, but was not locked. After knocking on the door twice, Jack had allowed himself entry, entering the fragrant candle-lit atmosphere of the Jaffa's personal quarters.  
  
"How ya' doin' there, buddy?" he chimed as he entered, seeing Teal'c perusing a book in the corner on his bed, sitting upright, back straight, posture perfect. The tall man never was one for slouching.  
  
Presentation over comfort, Jack surmised with a secret smile.  
  
"I am well, O'Neill," Teal'c informed him and Jonas as they closed the door.  
  
"Good." Jack cocked his head then, and added quickly, and straight to the point, "Not tired at all, are you?"  
  
Teal'c's eyes travelled up from the pages of his old book then, and he replied stoically, "No, I am not."  
  
Jonas stood to the side of O'Neill, looking down at a very close candle that he did not wish to set him alight. He took a step away from it cautiously. Afterwards, his eyes looked back to Teal'c, interested in the exchange between human and Jaffa.  
  
"Why do you ask, O'Neill?" Teal'c inquired, closing the cover on his book, and setting it aside.  
  
Jack rocked back and forth on his heels, hands in pockets casually as he replied, "Well, Jonas here has come up with a theory." With that, he fell silent, giving the Kelownan a look.  
  
Jonas' eyes went wide, and he understood the hint that he was to take over the explanation from there.  
  
Taking a breath, he began, "I've come to the conclusion that our recent dramatic experiences are somehow brought on by the dreams we're having beforehand. Take my dream for example; I had a dream that spiders followed us back through the wormhole, and the room became filled with them. And then it happened."  
  
At that point, Jonas' voice trailed off rather abruptly, and he stared for a moment at the far wall.  
  
"What's wrong? I thought you had this all figured out on the way down here," Jack said, a little disappointed the intelligent alien had lost his way during explaining.  
  
"No, no, it's not that," Jonas told him immediately, shaking his head.  
  
"Well what then?"  
  
Jonas looked the Colonel in the eye, and then decided to turn his eye to Teal'c as he explained, the Jaffa having a much more open mind than Jack.  
  
"When I was in the Gate-room, and we sent the UAV through, that was when the spiders appeared, right?"  
  
Teal'c nodded once, his sign of agreement.  
  
Jonas waited for it to hit the Jaffa, and when it didn't, he finally announced, "It was an outgoing wormhole."  
  
Jack turned to him then, and seemed to be piecing it all together.  
  
"Matter can't pass through an outgoing wormhole from the receiving end," Jonas said, adopting a look of sheer bewilderment. He looked a little like a child who had just heard that Santa Claus didn't exist, and was asking himself where all the presents came from.  
  
"So, what then?" Jack pondered, looking between his two alien companions.  
  
"Holograms," Jonas finalised. "I'd always thought that the spiders were real, whereas just the image of Hathor had been a hologram. Granted, a very advanced hologram, to be able to blast me across the room like she did, not to mention destroy the door to the mess hall."  
  
Jack looked on the verge of exploding at all the confusing jargon.  
  
"Think about it, there has to be someone here to control it all." Jonas sighed. "And it all has something to do with that planet... Alosha." He had had to search his mind thoroughly to recall the name of the planet in question, considering everyone in the vicinity insisted on referring to them as numbers and letters. It didn't make sense to the young alien.  
  
"So what do you propose we do, Jonas Quinn?" Teal'c asked of him, rising from the bed.  
  
Jonas shifted his weight on his feet slightly, and seemed to think about this for a little while before saying, "Well, when Carter wakes up, we're gonna have to piece together all that we have, and see where it leads us. There has to be something that can give us an answer. Surveillance cameras or something."  
  
Jack turned his full body to the alien. "I'll go up to security, see if they've got anything."  
  
Jonas nodded, and looked to Teal'c, seemingly waiting for his plan.  
  
"I will lead a search of the base, and try to determine if there are any signs of sabotage or intrusion."  
  
"And I'll go see Siler," Jonas finalised. "I wanna know if he has a theory on what happened to the Stargate."  
  
With that, the three headed out of the door, and turned in their separate directions, off on their own individual tasks. 


	7. Chapter 7

Samantha Carter had been awake for roughly half an hour when three very informed men had come to her bedside. They had been off investigating their latest dilemma.  
  
Jonas' right arm hung in a sling, but occasionally, his hand clenched and unclenched gently as he tried to assess its progress of repair. He was probably eager to have use of the limb again... considering he was right- handed.  
  
She looked them in the eye each in turn, and shrugged groggily, waiting for their apparent news.  
  
Teal'c was the first to speak, "I have taken a team on a thorough search of the entire base, and have uncovered many areas of apparent interference. Many rooms have been searched in the past few hours, and there have been items discovered missing base-wide, such as TERs, one zat, and a personnel file."  
  
"Why has a TER gone missing?" Colonel O'Neill mused, looking down inquisitively at Carter.  
  
She sighed, and said, "Well, if the culprit is, as we expect, in possession of invisibility technology, then they probably want to know how we'll be able to detect them. With a TER, they'll be able to figure out how to hide from it."  
  
"Peachy," O'Neill mumbled.  
  
They stood in silence for a moment, before Jonas took it as his cue to explain his own reconnaissance, "Well, I spoke with Siler, and he's taken a look over the Gate. What he came up with is that someone had altered the conduit regularity of the power flow, and the result was an overload in the Stargate itself, which caused us to be thrown out this side at such a high velocity. Someone basically just switched over a few cables, hoping we'd get scrambled on reintegration... or something like that." He shrugged.  
  
It was then that O'Neill took his turn to relay his information, and he looked extremely proud of his achievement, "I popped up to security, asked a few questions, and had a look at a few tapes over a cup of coffee. Their coffee seems to be better up there... I don't know why."  
  
"Colonel," Jonas mumbled, scratching the back of his head lightly, looking down at his boots, and then up at O'Neill, who mouthed an 'Oh'.  
  
"Anyway, I took a looksie at the tape from the Gate-room at around the time the spiders decided to show up, and we found something rather interesting that you and Carter might wanna take a look at," he relayed, pointing at Jonas and Sam.  
  
The two looked to one another, and then back to O'Neill, who nodded.  
  
"Trust me, you're gonna wanna see this."  
  
* * *  
  
"That can't be possible," Jonas muttered, he and Sam looking down at a screen showing the Gate-room, mere moments before the UAV had been launched.  
  
Looming high up the wall in the corner of the room, barely visible, was a large black creature, about the size of two balled fists.  
  
A spider... the one that had bitten Jonas.  
  
Sam looked at Jonas, and said; "It would explain why no one else suffered a bite, when just you did."  
  
"Yeah, but how did it get there if it's not a hologram?" Jonas asked, tempted to cross his arms, remembering his injury that forced him to refrain from doing so.  
  
"Someone planted it," O'Neill offered.  
  
They looked back at him as he paused the surveillance footage. He sat at the briefing room table, Hammond to his right at the head of the long oaken desk.  
  
"You mean to tell me we have an intruder on this base at this very moment?" Hammond inquired, obviously worried for security reasons.  
  
"Yes, sir, that's exactly what we're saying," O'Neill told him bluntly.  
  
"That still doesn't explain the bodies of the other spiders that appeared. They were removed from the base, right?" Jonas said in confusion, pocketing his left hand.  
  
"Yeah, they were taken to a nearby biological research facility to be analysed," Sam told him.  
  
She had been released from the infirmary after a further half an hour of checks and tests to ensure she wouldn't collapse immediately after setting foot out of the door. Dr. Fraiser had been insistent in saying that she was to take it easy due to her concussion.  
  
Now she seemed perfectly fine, although she seemed to yearn for sleep often.  
  
"Sir," Jonas began, addressing General Hammond, "I'm gonna have to suggest that we try not to sleep until we have this all figured out. Whoever's behind this seems to be using our dreams to figure out what frightens us."  
  
"How so?" Hammond asked of him, one elbow rested on the wooden desk as he looked up with brow furrowed at Jonas.  
  
"I hate spiders, and I was trapped in a room filled with them; Major Carter is worried about the return of a supposedly dead Goa'uld, namely Hathor, and then she shows up in the mess hall; and Colonel O'Neill is concerned for the safety of his team."  
  
O'Neill nodded discreetly.  
  
"I will not require sleep for several hours," Teal'c informed them, and continued, "but cannot Dr. Fraiser provide you with something that will keep you awake for the duration of our investigation?"  
  
Jonas looked to Sam, and shrugged a single shoulder. "Worth a try."  
  
* * *  
  
Doctor Janet Fraiser didn't like this idea one bit, but given the circumstances, she didn't see what other choice she had. The thought of keeping SG-1 awake for what could possibly be hours on end, considering they hadn't slept for nearly twenty-four hours -well, Teal'c and Jonas anyway- had a risk of reducing their ability to work altogether.  
  
Having provided O'Neill, Carter and Jonas with a dose of a suitable drug to keep them awake for another twelve hours, she sighed, watching as the four members of SG-1 conversed quietly.  
  
She was fully aware of the situation, and also that the only people who had suffered from a similar experience were sitting right in front of her. Fraiser was also fully aware that there was the risk of an intruder... a potentially dangerous one at that on this very base at this very moment.  
  
It was just a matter of where they were.  
  
* * *  
  
Sipping at a cup of coffee as he walked, his sighed. He didn't know how long he could keep this up. Staying awake unnaturally for this long without sleep wasn't normal for him, and he didn't like it too much.  
  
He body kept protesting to just about any action, and he found his shoulder ached a little every now and again... not to mention the sling was seriously annoying him.  
  
He arrived back at his office, and closed the door behind him, slinging the now-cold coffee into the wastebasket as he passed it.  
  
Jonas walked over to his messy desk, and seated himself, leaning back carefully in the comfortable chair, and scooped up Dr. Jackson's notebook from the wooden surface, digging it out from beneath sheets of paper, pens and diagrams.  
  
Sighing, rubbing his eyes, he opened the book, and flicked the pages casually, shooting upright after about twelve sheets of paper.  
  
He laid the book on the desk, sweeping a heap of the mess aside, hearing some of it clatter to the floor. He looked at it half-heartedly, and then back to the paper before him.  
  
He skimmed quickly through the words scrawled on the paper, having grown accustomed to Dr. Jackson's sometimes-messy handwriting, and then his eyes floated up as he thought.  
  
He mumbled to himself as he read it through for a second time, slower now, taking in the words properly, "Anta, warrior goddess, daughter of..." he looked up again, saying, "Ra and Hathor."  
  
He felt a draft then, and looking up suddenly, saw his door floating open ajar.  
  
"I thought I closed that..." 


	8. Chapter 8

Standing up a ladder, Carter saw the motion from inside the control room as General Hammond appeared, walking straight over to the microphone.  
  
"Major Carter?"  
  
She looked down from her safe place up the ladder, Siler standing below her in case of emergency, and responded, "Yes, sir?"  
  
"I had Teal'c contact the biological research facility you were referring to, and they told us that they no longer have the spider remains," he told her through the microphone, his voice amplified into the embarkation room at a suitable volume for her to hear him.  
  
"What happened to them, sir?" she inquired, looking down from her place on the ladder, meeting the eyes of General Hammond through the bulletproof glass.  
  
He shook his head, looking away momentarily, before responding again, "They simply vanished. One minute they were there, and the next they were gone. It's like they simply ceased to exist."  
  
"That's what I expected, sir," Carter told him, and nodded, "thank you."  
  
He nodded in acknowledgement, and let her get back to her work up the ladder.  
  
As she turned back, something caught her eye. She stepped up the ladder a bit more, and reached over to the light object that had her so intrigued.  
  
As her hand neared it, it's surface changed to that of something similar to plastic, but a lot firmer and more durable. Then, as she actually came into contact with it, it took on its natural form. A small device.  
  
She climbed back down the ladder, and looked closely at the device in her hands. Siler glanced over her shoulder through his glasses, and asked, "What is it?"  
  
"I'm not sure, but if it's anything like I think it is, it's probably a holographic projector."  
  
* * *  
  
"I was right, sir," Sam told O'Neill, Teal'c and General Hammond, indicating the small device she had located in the Gate-room, along with three others, one in every corner of the large room. "It's an advanced holographic projector, like nothing we've ever seen before. It was probably responsible for the presence of the spiders that Jonas saw... well, we all saw. When they got further and further away from these devices, they started to diminish, until they'd disappeared altogether."  
  
It was at this point in time that someone appeared in the doorway, seeming to have run the entire way there. He held a book open in his good hand, and calmly strode over to them, but obviously had something important on his mind.  
  
Sam knew she needn't fill him in on the holographic projectors, she had already phoned his office and told him. He had seemed excited about something then, but she hadn't had time to hear it then. No doubt she would hear it now.  
  
"I found something," Jonas told them all, laying the book on the table, a book that Sam recognised to be Daniel's.  
  
"Well?" O'Neill ventured, seeming intrigued.  
  
Teal'c glanced to Jonas as he began to speak.  
  
"I was looking through Dr. Jackson's notes when I found a reference to a Goa'uld by the name of Anta."  
  
"Anta?" O'Neill repeated.  
  
"Yes. She was a sort of demi-goddess, and has been mentioned in several of the hieroglyphics and pictographs Dr. Jackson encountered on your travels. She's described as a warrior goddess, and is often associated with the same symbol as Hathor herself." He paused, noting the reactions on his teammates' faces, before continuing, "But she's rarely be seen since the demise of her father. She seemed to vanish altogether from the Goa'uld hierarchy, where she was perceived as a menace. She started fights between the System Lords, and stirred up trouble pretty much anywhere she went."  
  
"Sounds like your common teenager," O'Neill noted.  
  
Jonas nodded, seemingly having not heard O'Neill's remark. Sam smiled.  
  
"She is described as an enticing woman who was able to silence men with a glance. Women feared her, and men revered her. They adored her, and brought her tributes and sacrifices on the worlds where she resided, none of which are named in these notes. But, it is written that she swore revenge on anyone that did her a great injustice... which I'm sure she thinks of as the death of her father... and mother."  
  
After a moment of quiet, Sam dared to ask, "So who were her mother and father?"  
  
Jonas sighed. "Ra and Hathor."  
  
O'Neill slapped his forehead. "Jeez, why can't these snakes get it into their thick heads that they shouldn't mix their bad genes this way? I mean, come on! They messed up so badly all the other times. Why bother to keep trying?"  
  
"She was said to be the successor of her mother, but when Hathor simply disappeared one day, and was never heard of again, Anta too vanished. She hasn't been heard of since."  
  
"So now what do we do?" Hammond asked of the team. "I've got a Goa'uld wandering around my base, and I want to know where she is, right now."  
  
"I will set myself to the task immediately, General Hammond" Teal'c told him, and then, with a bow of the head, left the room.  
  
"I need to research Anta more, see what her traits are, if there's anything we can use against her," Jonas said confidently, closing the book.  
  
Hammond nodded.  
  
The General turned his head to Carter, and told her, "See if there's any way you can determine whether or not we can track her movements, or even locate her."  
  
"Yes, sir," Sam acknowledged.  
  
"And I'll just..." O'Neill paused, before finally saying, "just make a nuisance of myself as usual."  
  
Jonas headed off out of the room, followed by O'Neill, who intended to start with the Kelownan apparently.  
  
Sam set back to work on the devices she had found. 


	9. Chapter 9

"So you really think this Goa'uld Anta is the one who's being a pain in the ass around here?"  
  
Jonas looked up from the books and notes; frustrated at the constant interruptions and distractions the Colonel was extremely good at providing. He sighed quietly, rubbed his eyes, and said, "It's very likely. Why else would she have projected an image of Hathor... her mother."  
  
Jack was silent for a moment; in quiet contemplation of the explanation he had just been provided with, before muttering, "Okay, good point."  
  
Before Jonas could get settled back into his usual research routine again, Jack's voice distracted him again, and he looked up, a little impatiently.  
  
"How come the cleanup team were able to pick up the dead spiders if they were just holograms?"  
  
Jonas glanced at him, noting the curiousity on the Colonel's face, and responded, "Major Carter says they were probably interactive holograms, created by Anta to be able to climb up walls, on people, and be picked up."  
  
"Okay," O'Neill mumbled, falling silent.  
  
Jonas shook his head at O'Neill's constant questions, and then settled back into his research.  
  
After about five minutes of solid reading, he brightened a little at the possibility of having found something useful.  
  
"Ah," he mumbled, and then spoke louder as he continued; "it says here that Anta is very similar in appearance to her mother. Red fiery hair, and an evil gaze. She is clad in gold, and always carries a hand-device. Her malice is identical to that of her father's, and many who have crossed her path intent on destroying her were never seen nor heard of again."  
  
"Oh, there's a cheery thought," O'Neill grumbled cynically.  
  
Jonas looked the Colonel in the eye, and cocked his head. "But if she's exactly like her mother, then why doesn't she just come out and try to brainwash everyone like Hathor did originally?"  
  
O'Neill shrugged. "Because that was a lame plan. Only men were affected, and that's not including Teal'c." After a quiet moment, he added, "God, am I glad she's dead."  
  
"You were the one who killed her, right?" Jonas asked, turning a page in his book.  
  
O'Neill nodded proudly. "Well, somebody had to get rid of her. She was seriously starting to-"  
  
At that point in time, there was a small noise from the corner of Jonas' office, similar to that of an object falling to the ground.  
  
O'Neill rose instantly from the table, and scooped up the TER he had thought to take from the armoury.  
  
Jonas stood, watching the Colonel scan the room, finally deactivating the device when he found that they were indeed alone.  
  
O'Neill let out a deep breath, and glanced back at Jonas. With a shrug, he sat down again.  
  
Jonas followed suit, albeit a little more warily than the Colonel.  
  
* * *  
  
Sam groaned in exhaustion, and rubbed her eyes hard, waiting for the colours to stop their little dance before she could clearly concentrate on her work again. The devices were more advanced than she had first thought, and she had had a tough job just penetrating their shell.  
  
So far, the little critters had just managed to give her a cracking headache, one she wanted to be rid of immediately.  
  
Standing from her desk in her lab, she headed out of the room, and moved on her way to the infirmary.  
  
On the way she almost bumped into O'Neill.  
  
"Colonel," she said, slightly startled, "I'm sorry. I didn't see you there."  
  
"Quite alright, Carter. So, how are you getting on with your new toys?"  
  
She groaned again, rubbing her temples as she led the way to the infirmary. "Not too well. So far, all I know is that they project holograms. Right now, I can't give you anymore than that, sir."  
  
"That's okay. That's quite enough information for me," he told her with a wan smile.  
  
As they walked, she remembered when she had last seen the Colonel, and just where he had been headed. "I thought you were with Jonas."  
  
"Oh, I was," O'Neill confirmed, "but he was getting a little angry because I kept talking to him."  
  
Sam smiled then, and opened the door to the infirmary, stepping inside.  
  
* * *  
  
He stared at the sling on his desk after having removed it almost ten minutes ago, shortly after the Colonel had left the room. So far, his shoulder wasn't giving him too much hassle.  
  
He knew to be careful though... Doctor's orders. If he were to aggravate it too much he would dislocate it again... apparently.  
  
Jonas sighed loudly, restlessly, yet somehow still tired, and flicked the pages in his book.  
  
Just before he was about to turn a page, he caught a glimpse of a diagram, and he turned back to it, staring long and hard at it. It illustrated a statue, tall and graceful, reaching high into the air above large slender buildings. It showed a woman, her hand held out, palm flat and raised to face an opponent... or so it seemed.  
  
Furrowing his brow, he remembered the description of Anta. He was looking at a statue of her now.  
  
But where was the planet? And why did they have a statue of her in amongst buildings not of Goa'uld design?  
  
Then he recognised something rather unsettling. A tall building of about twenty floors, with a beautifully finished surface, and large wide windows looking out over the rest of the city, and down on the people that milled around below.  
  
Jonas' eyes went wide.  
  
Alosha.  
  
* * *  
  
Teal'c allowed his eyes to close, feeling the soothing warmth flow from the candle flames to light the room. He could not permit himself to continue this mission without a successful kelnoreem.  
  
Sitting perfectly still on the floor, he let his mind empty, his body relax, and his breathing slow to a peaceful rate of relaxation and meditation.  
  
But his peace was short lived, for shortly after he had drifted into full kelnoreem, images flashed into his mind that troubled him greatly.  
  
He opened his eyes just as the alarm for activation of the Stargate began blaring through the base. Teal'c shot to his feet, and ran as fast as his legs would carry him to the control room, where very few people were located.  
  
Major Carter was the only other member of SG-1 present, and she was staring into the deactivating Stargate.  
  
"Major Carter, what has transpired here?" he asked, looking around at the dazed people who began to appear, O'Neill and Hammond included.  
  
"I have no idea. I left the room for a minute to get myself a cup of coffee, and when I came back, the Gate had been opened for PP9-843."  
  
Teal'c's eyes travelled around the small crowd of people, as he asked suddenly, "Where is Jonas Quinn?" 


	10. Chapter 10

Emerging on the other side, skidding to a halt, he looked back at the Stargate as it closed, the blue event horizon disappearing entirely into the nothingness it had appeared from.  
  
Running down to the ground below the Gate, he threw a bundle at one of the keepers, and grabbed the nearest horse he could, climbing onto its back with a little difficulty. He knew he shouldn't use his shoulder... but what he had found in that book had alarmed him.  
  
These people had known all along, and they had set Jonas and the others up to fall to a Goa'uld, one who was now wandering the corridors of the SGC.  
  
He wouldn't let them continue their charade of peace and welcoming to new visitors, especially if this was the sort of thing that awaited them all.  
  
Riding the horse faster than he would have ever dared did he not know what he had read less than thirty minutes ago, Jonas clung as tightly as he could to the animal's mane, seeing the tall buildings of the city grow larger.  
  
Chancellor Veran had a lot to answer for, and Jonas was here to see that he did. He wanted answers.  
  
Jonas knew he was going to be in big... no, huge trouble when he got back to Earth, but this demanded immediate action, and it had been too urgent to wait for the others.  
  
Either that or Jonas was too stupid to wait. He had taken time to grab his jacket and a zat though, but he had been too impatient to wait for the others.  
  
Why did he see it as his responsibility all of a sudden? He had a job to do back on Earth, but instead he felt he should be here, demanding the answers.  
  
He pulled the animal to an abrupt halt; one the horse wasn't too pleased with, and jumped down off its back.  
  
The High Guard at the door recognised him, but would not permit him entry.  
  
"I need to see the Chancellor," Jonas told them, wincing slightly at the pain in his arm.  
  
"He is not here," one of the guards told him simply, not even looking him in the eye.  
  
Impatiently, Jonas asked, "Well where is he?"  
  
The guards looked slightly wary as to whether or not they should inform this stranger of their leader's whereabouts, but after a couple of moments, they finally responded, "He is in the chamber."  
  
Jonas nodded once, and set off at a run for the chamber.  
  
* * *  
  
Chancellor Veran stared around the chamber, and sighed a heavy- hearted sigh. Why had it come to this? After all their proud years of industry and accomplishment, how had he allowed himself to stoop so low? He was ashamed, and disgusted.  
  
His people knew... but they only followed because Veran told them too, and he had been in power for so long that they did not dare to question his authority. It was not natural, his age... it was all because of her. Her and her magics. He cursed the day she had set foot through that portal.  
  
The crashing of running feet attracted his attention, and he turned quite swiftly for his age to see the alien Jonas Quinn standing in the doorway, glaring at him defiantly.  
  
He knew.  
  
He had figured it out.  
  
Chancellor Veran had known he would. This Jonas Quinn had seemed like the kind of person who had the intelligence to figure this whole charade out eventually.  
  
"I know what you're doing," he said in a low angry voice as he entered the room.  
  
It was then that Veran noticed he favoured one arm, the right one seeming to be stiffer than the left.  
  
Veran nodded. "Yes," he mumbled, "I suppose you do now. It did not take you as long as I thought it would take you. I am impressed."  
  
Jonas strode up to him, and stood before him, even as the Chancellor spoke again, "You would not understand the severity of the situation. You are too young, and you have not witnessed the horrors I have seen in my many years in power."  
  
Jonas shook his head. "But I bet they're not natural years, are they?"  
  
Veran shook his own head regretfully, suddenly feeling very small and frail. "No, no, they are not. Her devices keep me alive, because my word silences the doubts of my people. I am respected."  
  
"For all the wrong reasons," Jonas countered, his eyes filled with disappointment, and the slightest edge of anger.  
  
Veran shook his old head again, and told the young alien, "No. I was once a young and powerful leader to my people. But the years caught up with me, and then she came. She came and showed me the secrets that would keep me alive for so long."  
  
"A sarcophagus."  
  
"Yes," Veran acknowledged with a nod.  
  
Veran's eyes shifted to a shimmering point at the far wall behind the young alien, and he hung his head in regret at what he was about to do.  
  
"She'll kill you..." Jonas told the old man, "when she has what she wants, she'll kill you, and your people. You can't hope to keep this up with her."  
  
"No, I cannot," Veran said in a small voice as the glowing flashed briefly in the background, lighting up the haunting shadows. "But I am sorry."  
  
Jonas furrowed his brow.  
  
"I am sorry." 


	11. Chapter 11

Listening to the Chancellor's seemingly sincere apology, Jonas watched as he backed away slightly, even though the Kelownan made no move towards the Aloshan.  
  
Something had him spooked, and Jonas soon realised what it was.  
  
Whirling immediately, he came face to face with the beautiful, yet wickedly evil features of a woman with blood-red hair, flowing over her shoulders like a discoloured waterfall, her green eyes regarding him curiously.  
  
Jonas took a deep breath in, and stepped back, drawing his zat and aiming it.  
  
The eyes flashed as she stepped completely from the shadows. As her description had informed him, she was clad entirely in gold, and an elegant but deadly hand-device was woven around her wrist and palm, tipping each of her fingers on her right hand.  
  
Her eyes floated over Jonas' shoulder, and in her fluidic warped voice, she calmly said, "Leave, old man. And do not return."  
  
Jonas watched out of the corner of his eye as Veran fled as fast as his old frame would permit, soon out of sight.  
  
"Anta," Jonas said quietly, staring the Goa'uld directly in the eye. He wanted to fire, but his hand would not allow it, frozen in position.  
  
She smiled wickedly, and nodded her head gracefully. "Yes. I have watched you. You have learnt much of me."  
  
Jonas stood in the middle of the room, his only escape route happening to be directly past Anta.  
  
"You know of my mother and father, do you not?" she asked smoothly, her voice sending a shiver down Jonas' spine.  
  
He nodded, transfixed by her gaze. He closed his eyes briefly, giving his head a quick shake, before defiantly saying, "I know they are dead."  
  
The eyes flashed again, and she growled, "You are responsible for their deaths, and you will be duly punished for this great injustice." She knocked the zat from his hand, and it skittered across the floor, several feet away.  
  
Jonas made a grab for an opportunity to escape that he knew deep in his mind didn't really exist. As soon as he started to move, Anta had a hold of him, and had thrown him backwards without much effort at all.  
  
His back slammed into the wall, and he gasped at the burning pain in his shoulder. He held a hand to it gently, watching her approach.  
  
"I didn't kill them," Jonas told her, his voice wavering slightly. He swallowed dryly, and steeled his resolves. He wasn't going to allow himself to become frightened.  
  
"Liar," she growled, pacing towards him.  
  
"Ra has been dead for seven years... before I even went to Earth, and Hathor died before then as well. I never had the pleasure of meeting them," he told her, as she stopped before him. He knew sarcasm, even in such a small amount probably wasn't a good idea.  
  
"You are not human?"  
  
He shook his head. "No."  
  
She stared at the hand he held on his shoulder, and inquired, "Where are you from?"  
  
Jonas stayed silent. He should never have said anything to her in the first place. He had made a mistake in coming here... he knew that now. He would be lucky if O'Neill and the others made it in time.  
  
In a swift action, Anta locked a hand around Jonas' throat, the other hand grabbing him by the right shoulder, causing him to cry out in pain.  
  
"What planet are you from?" she hissed, forcing him harder against the wall.  
  
Again, Jonas did not speak, but concentrated on pushing the agony down. He didn't want Anta to know how much it hurt... she would use it against him.  
  
Her eyes flashing in rage, she flung him through the air.  
  
He landed hard on the floor near the far wall, giving a gasp of pain as he felt his shoulder dislocate as it had before. He clamped his eyes shut against it, and hissed through clenched teeth.  
  
"Why do you insist on punishing yourself?" she asked of him as she moved gracefully across the distance she had thrown him.  
  
Jonas' eyes looked up into hers, and he remained silent once again.  
  
He heard the ringing of metal as she removed a sharp blade from a sheath in her belt, and twisted it so that the light reflected off of it.  
  
Jonas knelt on the floor, holding his left hand to his right shoulder, staring up at Anta as she loomed over him, dagger in her hand.  
  
"Very well," she grumbled angrily, "I will enjoy ending your life before I travel back to the Tau'ri. I will punish them for their crimes against my mother and father."  
  
Jonas forced himself to stand, facing Anta off bravely. Suddenly, he wasn't so afraid to die.  
  
But that was when he heard the faint sound of a zat from down the corridor, and he spun on his heels.  
  
A strong arm latched around his chest, as he felt Anta press the dagger to his throat. He remained still, after a brief moment of struggle in which he had realised that doing so may result in his death.  
  
Teal'c was the first to appear, and he halted instantly at the sight in the chamber. There was a certain hint of alarm in his gaze as his eyes flicked between his friend and the Goa'uld holding him tightly.  
  
Jonas shoulder throbbed and burned with pain as Anta took great pleasure in applying large amounts of pressure to it as she gripped him. Jonas' hands were latched on her arm, but he felt he had no strength to try and free himself. He was in a considerable amount of agony, and from his prior exhaustion, he felt on the verge of collapse.  
  
Carter and O'Neill arrived simultaneously, and the Colonel raised his weapon at Anta, followed by Sam.  
  
"Lower your weapons or I will kill him," Anta warned loudly, her voice distorted, menacing.  
  
Colonel O'Neill hesitated, but Carter mumbled his name to him, and he reluctantly lowered it to the ground.  
  
O'Neill looked Jonas in the eye, and the two locked gazes for a moment. The only thing Jonas could see in the Colonel's expression was worry.  
  
* * *  
  
Carter stared at the Goa'uld holding Jonas at knifepoint, and shuddered at the frightening resemblance she held to Hathor.  
  
Anta -as Jonas had called her- noticed her gaze, and said with a smile, "I see the shock in your eyes. The same surprise you showed when you saw my mother before you."  
  
And then her body changed suddenly, and for one disconcerting and extremely confusing moment, she took on the form of Jonas. She smiled in her new form, and then quickly changed back.  
  
Jonas struggled for a moment, before Anta squeezed his shoulder, and he gave a small cry.  
  
Carter's face was as if set in stone, and she calmly, but firmly said, "Let him go."  
  
Anta trailed the blade down Jonas' face, taking great pleasure in the discomfort she instilled in her captive. She did not speak, but continued to stare Carter in the eye as she contently tormented Jonas.  
  
"Hey," O'Neill exclaimed then, and took a step forward. A single step, but enough to make Anta immediately move backwards, dragging the Kelownan back with her.  
  
Carter noted the look of pain in Jonas' eyes, and the fear. He had never experienced anything like this before, whereas the others had. It was all too new for him, and all too unsettling. If she knew she wouldn't get Jonas and herself killed in the attempt, Carter would have rushed forward then and tried to help her friend.  
  
"What do you want with him anyway?" O'Neill demanded in his usual sarcastic tones that he reserved especially for the Goa'uld. "From what I understand, you're holding a grudge on the one who killed your mom and dad, right?"  
  
"This is correct," Anta growled, and waited for the Colonel to continue.  
  
O'Neill held his hands out wide, showing himself off for all that he was. A now-unarmed man of middle age, and moderate fighting prowess.  
  
"Well, here he is," he announced proudly with a smile.  
  
But as Anta did not release the Kelownan, O'Neill shouted, "I'm the one you want, lady, let him go!"  
  
* * *  
  
Jonas heard O'Neill's words over the sound of his own beating heart, and felt the cold blade brush against his neck again.  
  
The Colonel was trying to get the Goa'uld away from him, and so far, it wasn't working. Jonas could feel the tension now building in the woman's body, and he knew then that she was furious. O'Neill's words had stirred a response in her, if only a slight silent one.  
  
Jonas looked over at Teal'c, who was staring intently on something across the room. He followed the Jaffa's gaze as best he could, and noted what had the man so transfixed.  
  
Jonas' zat.  
  
He looked back ay Teal'c, who now looked right back at him, raising an eyebrow.  
  
Jonas tilted his head discreetly, feeling the cold metal brush again his neck once more, and gave Teal'c a silent signal of approval.  
  
Anything was better than this.  
  
Teal'c gazed to O'Neill, who -through years of working with the tall dark alien- understood his plan entirely, whereas Carter simply stood oblivious in the middle, glaring at Anta.  
  
O'Neill lowered his hands to his sides, and spoke to the Goa'uld loudly, "What's the matter with you anyway? Where are all your little evil minions?"  
  
"I do not have Jaffa," Anta replied, tightening her grip on Jonas again.  
  
Jonas winced.  
  
"Why not? Can't afford to pay them?"  
  
O'Neill was taking his usual cheap stabs at the enemy, and this time they seemed to be working.  
  
"They are unreliable."  
  
"Oh, I get it... girl power and all that." O'Neill glanced at Carter with a shrug. "Fair enough."  
  
Jonas looked over at Teal'c as the Colonel continued to ramble relentlessly about whatever came to mind... anything that would mildly insult the woman.  
  
The Jaffa was edging closer and closer to the dropped weapon. Anta would have seen Teal'c reaching for the one he had dropped upon her command. It was too obvious.  
  
Jonas hoped he hurried it along.  
  
* * *  
  
By this time, Sam had noticed Teal'c's tiny movements, and she saw exactly what he was headed for. A dropped zat, about seven feet away from him.  
  
That explained the Colonel's non-stop rambling.  
  
Carter felt a little useless just standing there, unarmed, and staring at Jonas and the Goa'uld. She wished to do something to help, but if Teal'c was going to do what she thought he was going to do, then she may very well come in useful very soon.  
  
She eyed her P-90. It was set about two feet in front of her, just waiting to be picked up.  
  
Teal'c gave a silent look to O'Neill, who loudly shouted, "Ever wonder why your mother and father are dead? Because you're pathetic life sucking worms who always lose!"  
  
Anta's eyes flashed, and she gripped her dagger's blade, whilst tightening her fist around Jonas' dislocated shoulder, which caused him to give a shout.  
  
At that exact same moment, Teal'c lunged for the zat, his hand clamping around it, opening it, and firing it.  
  
The energy struck Anta in the side, knocking her to the floor. Jonas fell, rolling away, slightly stunned, and in a lot of pain.  
  
O'Neill leapt back away from the swiping blade of the Goa'uld, who now screamed in fury. He stumbled to the floor, having tripped over his own foot.  
  
Anta stood, moving intently for the helpless Kelownan near to her. She raised her dagger.  
  
Move! Carter's mind screamed in her head, and she jumped into action, reaching down, grabbing her weapon, aiming it, and squeezing the trigger as hard as she could. 


	12. Chapter 12

Jonas' heard the bullets explode from Major Carter's P-90, and immediately ducked as low as he could, covering his head with his good arm, closing his eyes tightly.  
  
He heard the scream of the Goa'uld as she was hit again and again. He heard the ringing of the knife as it dropped to the floor close to him.  
  
And then the silence.  
  
Jonas looked up then, just as her body slumped to the ground, ravaged with bullet-holes.  
  
He breathed heavily, shuffling away from her, and starting slightly when a hand landed on his shoulder behind him.  
  
He looked up, seeing Carter glancing down at him, seemingly a little shocked herself.  
  
Jonas turned back to the dead form of Anta; her lifeless eyes stared up at the ceiling of the chamber.  
  
He took some small satisfaction in knowing that she would never bother them again... but he knew a human had died too. The host had lost her life as well as the symbiote.  
  
Jonas shook his head, remembering there would have been nothing they could have done about that anyway. Well... the Tok'ra may have been able to help, but not before Anta had ended quite a few lives.  
  
A voice boomed from behind them. "What have you done?"  
  
Jonas stood, looking over at Chancellor Veran and one of his younger politicians, who went by the name of Yola. He looked infuriated at the sight of the dead woman.  
  
"Hey," O'Neill retorted, "we saved your asses, that's what we did!"  
  
Yola strode into the room, and over to the still form of the Goa'uld. "Do you know what this means for our people? We will be attacked. They will know what has happened. She kept us safe!"  
  
Jonas spoke then, his voice quite quiet in the cavernous room, echoing slightly off the walls, "They never even knew she was here. She's been missing for years. You'll be fine."  
  
Chancellor Veran moved into the chamber, and stood beside his young aide. "Yola, these people have freed us. Anta never intended any good for our people. She was an evil being, one who wished for nothing but war."  
  
Jonas nodded in agreement.  
  
"Your world is safe once again," Teal'c told the Chancellor as he approached.  
  
Veran bowed his head slightly in thanks, and looked over at Jonas with a gleam of regret in his eyes, "I am sorry for what I did to you. I should have warned you of her presence. She followed you back through your Stargate, and I knew she was here all along." He stepped up to the Kelownan, and said in a weak pathetic voice, "Please forgive me."  
  
"It's alright," Jonas told him, cradling his arm, "I don't blame you. You were afraid of her."  
  
Veran nodded vigorously, moving off again. "Please accept our most sincere apologies. We never intended to do your people any harm. I hope this will not end the friendship between our worlds."  
  
O'Neill came to stand beside Jonas and Carter, and mumbled quietly, "Well, I don't know about that."  
  
"We don't hold you responsible," Carter told them, and then added, "but you know you never have to be afraid of the Goa'uld. They're just as mortal as you or me."  
  
Veran gave a nod, and moved off silently, just as Teal'c called to him, saying, "Please send my apologies to the guard who was standing watch."  
  
O'Neill smiled.  
  
Jonas understood that Teal'c had stunned someone upon entrance... he just hadn't known who.  
  
The Chancellor and his contingent moved off out of the chamber, and down the corridor.  
  
O'Neill looked to Jonas. "Are you okay?"  
  
Jonas nodded. "Yeah."  
  
"That was a stupid thing you did," he continued, removing his cap and running a hand over his grey hair.  
  
"I know. I just didn't expect Anta to follow me back," Jonas responded, looking over at the dead woman behind them.  
  
Carter was removing the hand device, knowing it could come in useful in the future, considering she herself was able to work such a weapon.  
  
"Come on," O'Neill began, sighing and shouldering his weapon, "let's get outta here. This place gives me the creeps."  
  
Jonas smiled, and followed O'Neill out of the chamber, shadowed closely by Major Carter, Teal'c bringing up the rear.  
  
* * *  
  
Sam sat with Jonas in the briefing room, the man's arm back in a sling. He looked much happier now, after his recent ordeal. She wasn't surprised. A run in with any Goa'uld wasn't a pleasant experience. At least he knew what to expect next time.  
  
O'Neill and Teal'c entered the room, followed by a very relieved looking General Hammond.  
  
"Well, people, I think it's safe to say we're in the clear," Hammond announced, taking his place at the head of the table, whilst the Colonel and the Jaffa seated themselves opposite Carter and Jonas.  
  
"Let's hope so," Jonas said quietly, staring fixatedly at the polished wooden surface, his left arm rested on it lightly.  
  
Sam looked across to him, and saw he seemed distant. His gaze was vacant.  
  
She touched his arm slightly, and said, "Hey, she's dead. Trust me."  
  
Jonas nodded in acceptance, and with a sigh, settled into his chair further.  
  
Teal'c looked very content to know that the universe was free of yet another Goa'uld. Every time they succeeded in bringing one down and out of action, he got that same look in his eye, and just a hint of a smile on his face.  
  
Sam thought back on the whole experience, and found that once they pieced it all together, it really had been quite an intricate plan to trap them.  
  
Why Anta hadn't killed the four in the first place was still a mystery, but Sam supposed that the Goa'uld had wanted to intimidate the four for a while. She had entered their minds using microscopic devices Dr. Fraiser had located after quite a while. They had been so tiny and fragile that upon removing them, she had managed to completely destroy all but one.  
  
That one was in Carter's lab at that very second, just waiting for her to start studying it.  
  
She knew that Anta had gone to a lot of trouble. She also knew that it had been a close one.  
  
Would they be so lucky next time?  
  
* * *  
  
Jonas sat in his room, on the edge of his bed, and sighed. His eyes travelled around the room slowly, searching for signs of intrusion.  
  
When he was satisfied it was safe in his room, he lay down on his bed, and flicked off the lamp.  
  
Staring up into the darkness above him, he cast his mind back. Their latest mission had been a lot more eventful than they had first intended.  
  
But no one -least of all Jonas- had expected a Goa'uld to show. And the odds of that one Goa'uld bearing such a phenomenal grudge against SG-1 were mind-blowing.  
  
Anta had been a very intelligent being, and she had worked out a whole plan to destroy those who had done her such a terrible wrong. But in all her rage and feelings of revenge, she had set herself up for a fall.  
  
She should have known O'Neill and the others would arrive to save Jonas within no time, so why had she stalled? She had had a chance to simply kill the Kelownan five times over in the space of time they were alone in that chamber.  
  
Not to mention the opportunity she had had when knocking them all out so that she could implant them with the devices they had discovered.  
  
Jonas suddenly didn't feel so tired. He was worried about what would enter his mind during his dreams... whether or not the device was really gone.  
  
He sighed, and firmly told himself he was being foolish.  
  
It was over. There was nothing to worry about... for the time being anyway.  
  
Slowly, his eyes closed.  
  
He slept soundly that night. 


End file.
